SURGERIES REPORT NOTES TWO SCRIPPS HOSPITALS

Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla outperformed all other hospitals in the state for a low rate of deaths following heart bypass surgery in 2009, while Scripps Mercy Hospital was one of two California hospitals with significantly worse bypass surgery death rates that year, a state report released Monday shows.

Scripps La Jolla also was one of four hospitals that did statistically worse than the state average for post-bypass surgery strokes, using combined 2008 and 2009 data.

The California Report on Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery, 2009 Hospital Data, by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, reviewed the 119 hospitals in the state that do the surgery. The study looked at three factors: deaths within 30 days of bypass surgery, stroke following bypass surgery, and unplanned hospital readmission within 30 days that was related to the surgery.

Scripps La Jolla was the busiest of the 11 San Diego County hospitals that did heart bypass surgeries in 2009, performing 413 procedures that year.

In a letter of response to the report, Scripps Memorial La Jolla Chief Executive Gary Fybel said that hospital’s higher post-surgery stroke rate occurred only in 2008.

“A significantly lower rate of strokes (50% less) were reported in 2009 and this improvement has been sustained,” Fybel wrote.

Dr. David Cracroft, senior director of medical affairs at Scripps Mercy Hospital, also sent a letter in response to that hospital’s 2009 bypass surgery death rate.

“In 2009 we reported eight deaths of (bypass surgery) patients, which was an isolated increase in mortality rate not seen in 2007, 2008 or 2010,” he wrote. He said five involved critically ill patients with many surgical risk factors transferred from other facilities.

Officials said deaths following bypass surgery dropped 34 percent statewide from 2003 to 2009. California hospitals in 2009 performed 13,260 isolated bypass surgeries that did not involve other surgery, with 252 deaths.